Rep. Mark Green (R-TN-07) blasted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) for reviving earmark spending in Congress, and said he plans to refuse to even participate in the earmarking process.
“It’s rare for Congress to get anything right, but in 2011 after Americans rose up to usher in the Tea Party wave, Congressional Republicans got it right and banned earmarks,” Green said in statement. “Today, at a time when our national debt is at record highs, the last thing Congress should do is resurrect earmarks—one of the Swamp’s most corrupt practices.”
Earmarking allows discretionary funds in a bill to be directed to specific recipients with the stroke of a pen, instead of allocating funds based on merit or some kind of competitive process.
“While some call it ‘Community Project Funding,’ and others call it ‘Member Directed Spending,’ no matter how much lipstick you try to put on the pig, an earmark is an earmark,” Green’s statement continued. “I voted against changing our rules to allow earmarks last month, I will not be participating in Speaker Pelosi’s earmark process, and I will most definitely not be voting for any Bridges to Nowhere.”
The “Bridge to Nowhere” reference is a nod to 2005 product of earmarking, when $223 million in discretionary funds were directed to build a bridge that would have connected Ketchikan, Alaska to its airport on Gravina Island. The project, which was eventually scrapped, has become symbolic of wasteful federal government spending.
House Democrats last month voted to bring back earmarking, which fiscal conservatives view as a predicate for wasteful spending.
Wednesday, the Senate GOP voted to uphold its ban on earmarks, in what has been described as a “rebuke” of their Democrat colleagues in the House.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted earmarks on Twitter.
“Bringing back earmarks would completely undo the most significant conservative reform enacted a decade ago to restore public trust in our legislative process,” he said.
Bringing back earmarks would completely undo the most significant conservative reform enacted a decade ago to restore public trust in our legislative process. https://t.co/9IBcJmnzFI
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) April 21, 2021
Cruz even published an opinion piece in The Daily Caller on the subject Wednesday.
“Earmarks like these were used as a form of legal bribery to buy and sell votes. Lawmakers loved nothing more than ‘bringing home the bacon,’ and it didn’t matter the cost paid by American taxpayers,” he said. “Earmarks enabled party bosses to pass irresponsible and bloated spending bills that have plunged us into $28 trillion of debt.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to dabroscareports@gmail.com.